


Going Up

by wincechesters



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: 30 Day Cheesy Tropes Challenge, Alternate Universe, Chance Meetings, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-20 00:24:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12421251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wincechesters/pseuds/wincechesters
Summary: He thinks that maybe luck is on his side as the bell chimes to signal the elevator’s timely arrival, until the door opens to reveal an elevator absolutely stuffed with brown cardboard boxes, all with the same moving company label stamped conveniently on the side.Yuuri’s mouth falls open in dismay, and he’s frantically calculating if he should try to squeeze in alongside the nearest tower of packaging, or if he should make a run for the (twenty five flights of) stairs, when someone pokes their head out from behind one of the stacks.A sweaty, silver-haired, impossibly handsome someone.“Hello!” the man chirps cheerfully. “Thank goodness--would you mind holding the door while I get these boxes off the elevator?”------In which they meet on the elevator.





	Going Up

**Author's Note:**

> Part of Kim and Jess' 30 Day Cheesy Tropes Challenge #26: Elevator Meeting.
> 
> Thanks as always to the Magnificent Meg for beta and encouragement, and also to Kim for embarking on this trope adventure with me! Also to Mari, my new writing buddy: looking forward to lots more writing days in the future :)

Of course, the most important meeting of Yuuri’s life happens on a day he’s running late.  
  
He only catches part of what Phichit is yelling after him as he stumbles out the door, one arm in the (wrong) sleeve of his jacket and the other pulling the door shut behind him as he mumbles a frantic and only partially coherent affirmative in his roommate’s direction around the piece of toast hanging out of his mouth. He manages to get the rest of the toast down and his jacket on correctly while waiting for the elevator, thinking that maybe luck is on his side as the bell chimes to signal the elevator’s timely arrival.  
  
Until the door opens to reveal an elevator absolutely stuffed with brown cardboard boxes, all with the same moving company label stamped conveniently on the side.  
  
Yuuri’s mouth falls open in dismay, and he’s frantically calculating if he should try to squeeze in alongside the nearest tower of packaging, or if he should make a run for the (twenty five flights of) stairs, when someone pokes their head out from behind one of the stacks.  
  
A sweaty, silver-haired, impossibly handsome someone.  
  
“Hello!” the man chirps cheerfully. “Thank goodness--would you mind holding the door while I get these boxes off the elevator?”  
  
I’m sorry, Yuuri thinks, regretfully. I would love to help you, but I am incredibly late for a very important class and my instructor is probably going to string me up by my tights if I am late for the twelfth time this month, so I really can’t help you move your two hundred boxes out of this elevator right now.  
  
“Sure,” Yuuri’s mouth says, and Yuuri gives himself a resounding mental kick before sticking his hand out to keep the elevator door open while the handsome stranger beams.  
  
“Thank you,” the man says, scooping a box from one of the piles in his--truly unfairly muscular arms, goddamn Yuuri and his pathetic gay ass. “I’ve been stuck on this elevator for twenty minutes already, and I couldn’t get anything out of the elevator before the door closed again.”  
  
Yuuri watches dumbly as the man transport boxes one by one into the hallway. “Are you moving in?” Another mental kick--of course he’s moving in Yuuri, what a stupid question.  
  
The man doesn’t seem to notice, however. “Yes! I’m new to the building. I was supposed to have help but my cousin decided helping me move wasn’t an interesting enough use of his time. Thankfully one of my handsome neighbors was kind enough to help me.” He winks one blue eye in Yuuri’s direction before picking up another box.  
  
Yuuri is fairly certain he is being teased now. This man is beautiful, even--maybe especially--with moving sweat darkening the silver sweep of his hair, a light flush coloring his cheekbones with the exertion. Yuuri, on the other hand, isn’t even sure he brushed his own hair this morning.  
  
Finally the boxes are all unloaded, and the man straightens, pressing his hands to the small of his back and bending to stretch backwards with a small groan. His t-shirt rides up with the motion, exposing a strip of pale, oh-so toned stomach, and Yuuri has to stifle a groan of his own.  
  
“Thank you for your help; I don’t know what I would have done without you.”  
  
Yuuri smiles weakly. “Probably ridden the elevator until someone else came along and took pity on you.”  
  
The man beams. “You’re right. Well, thank you again. I would offer you some coffee as a thank you, but it’ll be a while before I can find the coffee maker in all this mess.” He indicates the newly relocated mountain of boxes now clogging up the hallway with one sweep of a graceful hand.  
  
“It’s alright, really.” Yuuri scratches at the back of his neck. “Well--welcome to the building. I really have to--” he gestures at the open elevator--”now.”  
  
“Oh of course, I’m so sorry!”  
  
“It’s okay,” Yuuri says, though it really isn’t and Celestino is going to kill him but he’s not going to tell this beautiful man that when he’s looking at him like he hung the moon when all he did was keep him from being stuck riding an elevator all day with two hundred boxes for company.  
  
“Well, goodbye,” he says lamely, stepping into the elevator.  
  
“Goodbye, neighbor. I hope I’ll see you again soon.” There’s another wink, and just as the door starts to close, the man angles his head to add, almost as an afterthought--”You have jam on your face, by the way.”  
  
The door closes, leaving Yuuri gaping at his own disheveled, jam-faced reflection in the mirrored inside of the elevator. That’s it--he’s never getting out, now. He’s going to move into this elevator. It’s his home now, until the end of time, or at least until the beautiful man moves out again.  
  
Unfortunately the door pings open on the ground floor, and he swipes hastily at his face with the sleeve of his coat before anyone else sees, making his way out onto the street and to the bus station. Maybe if he’s lucky, Celestino will kill him, and he’ll never have to face his new, offensively beautiful neighbor ever again.  
  
*****  
  
Yuuri doesn’t spy on his new hot neighbor. He doesn’t. He does, however, peer as surreptitiously as possible at the list of names next to the buzzers inside the front doors, noticing with an affected indifference that “V. Nikiforov <3” is the new owner of buzzer 2509.  
  
Of course he’s never going to be able to do anything with this information, because he has no intentions of even so much as making eye contact with V. Nikiforov <3 ever again. One jam-faced, unbrushed-haired interaction with the most beautiful man Yuuri has ever seen is enough for one lifetime, thank you very much.  
  
After all, V. Nikiforov <3 only spoke to Yuuri because he needed help with the elevator. He’s clearly miles outside of Yuuri’s league, and even if they share a floor and might occasionally get stuck in an elevator together, V. Nikiforov <3 is probably far too important and busy being gorgeous to have anything to say to Yuuri on a regular, non-moving day.  
  
And just to be safe, maybe Yuuri will take the stairs for the remainder of his tenancy.  
  
His stair plan works, at first. He tells Phichit that he’s trying to get more exercise, and he jogs up and down the twenty five flights three days in a row, feeling winded and hating himself at the end, but accomplished in having successfully avoided the crowded elevator and any chance sightings of their new neighbor. He makes it all the way to the following Wednesday, when Lilia puts him through his grand jetés so many times that his legs are practically screaming by the time he stumbles off the bus and through the front door of the apartment building.  
  
He wobbles halfway over to the door leading to the stairwell before he decides fuck it. The lobby is empty. How likely is it that V. Nikiforov <3 will be riding the elevator up from the parkade at the exact moment that he gets on at the lobby, the one time that he gives in and uses it?  
  
Very likely, in fact.  
  
“Oh, hello!” V. Nikiforov <3 says, when he looks up from the phone in his hand to find Yuuri staring into the elevator at him in dismay. His face lights up in a way that is entirely unfair, and if Yuuri thought he was beautiful in jeans and a t-shirt on moving day, V. Nikiforov <3 in a navy blue suit and charcoal grey tie, clearly on the way home from his job as some high-powered executive, is devastation in the flesh.  
  
Yuuri stares in dismay for so long that the door of the elevator tries to close in front of his face, and Yuuri has half a mind to let it, but V. Nikiforov <3 lunges out and stops it with a hand. “Are you getting on?” he asks, looking confused, and Yuuri manages a nod and trudges into the elevator. He checks his face as surreptitiously as possible in the mirrored wall of the elevator and is grateful at least that today there is nothing on his face aside from embarrassment and regret.  
  
“It’s been weeks since I last saw you; I was worried you had moved out,” V. Nikiforov <3 is saying cheerfully.  
  
No such luck, thinks Yuuri, and he shakes his head. “No, I just. I usually take the stairs.”  
  
“That’s a lot of stairs,” V. Nikiforov <3 says, sounding impressed. “You must be very fit.”  
  
Yuuri shrugs. “I dance,” he says.  
  
“Wow!” V. Nikiforov <3’s silver eyebrows shoot up and he turns to Yuuri, his eyes brightening and mouth curling in an irrepressibly wondrous grin. “What kind of dance? Are you in any shows? Can I come watch?”  
  
Whoa. “Um, sure,” Yuuri blurts, before frantically backtracking because no way in hell this beautiful man actually wants to watch him dance. “I mean--I mostly do ballet; it’s boring, you probably wouldn’t like it.”  
  
V. Nikiforov <3’s mouth curls into a frown and his brow furrows in a way that is entirely too cute for someone so handsome. Yuuri is a fucking goner. “Why do you do it if you think it’s boring?”  
  
“No, I mean. Um. I don’t think it’s boring, I love it. But most people do.” Yuuri shuffles his feet, and he can feel his blush so he looks down, finding the tile under his shoes extremely interesting.  
  
But there’s a hand on his shoulder and he looks up to find V. Nikiforov <3 staring at him earnestly, his plush, too beautiful mouth curled into a soft smile. “I could never be bored if you were dancing,” he purrs. “I hope I get a chance to see it sometime.”  
  
Yuuri’s heart is pounding in his ears and he should probably pull away but he can’t, his eyes glued to V. Nikiforov <3’s face. The man’s eyes are impossibly warm beneath smoky lashes, and a blue that icy should really be cold. Yuuri opens his mouth, to say who the hell knows what, but he’s saved when the elevator dings and the door slides open to reveal their floor.  
  
V. Nikiforov <3’s hand drops away, and Yuuri can breathe again. He follows Yuuri out through the open door.  
  
“Well, goodbye,” Yuuri says lamely, and he makes to turn right as V. Nikiforov <3 goes left.  
  
“Wait!”  
  
Yuuri stops. “Yeah?”  
  
“I’m Victor, by the way.” He holds out an elegant hand, and Yuuri tries not to stare at the graceful line of his wrist where the cuff of his suit and impeccably starched shirt slide up. Who the hell has beautiful wrists, for goodness sake.  
  
I’m so gay, Yuuri thinks despairingly, as he reaches out to shake Victor’s hand. “Yuuri,” he manages to choke out. “Nice to meet you.”  
  
“Oh no, Yuuri,” Victor says with a smile. “The pleasure is all mine.” Then there’s another wink, goddamn him, and he’s resettling his no-doubt designer messenger bag on one broad shoulder and turning away. “I hope to see you again soon.”  
  
“Uh huh,” Yuuri squeaks, and he’s turning as fast as he can to scuttle back to his and Phichit’s shared apartment. He has an urgent date with a pillow he needs to scream into for approximately the next ten years.  
  
*****  
  
Yuuri stops taking the stairs.  He tells himself he doesn’t have time for twenty five flights of stairs twice a day, every day, doesn’t want to keep exhausting himself before his hours and hours of gruelling practice with the company. It has nothing to do with his hot new neighbor or a hope that he might continue to run into him, he tells himself, and Phichit.  
  
It’s at least twenty percent true, but Phichit knows him well enough to  see through the facade. “Sure, Yuuri,” he says, giving him a skeptical look through the mirror he’s using to swipe eyeliner onto his lids with a practiced hand. “Just be safe, okay? I’m too young to be an uncle.”  
  
"Phichit!” Yuuri screeches through his blush. It’s not like that, or at least Yuuri thinks it isn’t. Victor talks to him every time they ride the elevator together, and sure it’s friendly, maybe even flirty. He learns that Victor works in marketing, and that he was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. He learns that Victor has an entire closetful of bespoke suits that look sinfully good on him, and that he loves to read, and that he talks with his whole body, unable to contain his excitement about things he enjoys or which interest him. And he seems shockingly interested in Yuuri’s own life, letting him ramble until he trails off into blushing silence, a charmed, fascinated smile gracing Victor’s face when Yuuri dares to look up to see it.  
  
But Yuuri never sees him with someone else, never hears him talk about anyone aside from the infrequently mentioned angry younger cousin or his boss, Yakov, the latter mentioned with a cheerfully teasing irreverence that sounds suspiciously like affection. He works late hours, spends a lot of time at work, and never, ever mentions a significant other. If Yuuri didn’t know better, he would think that Victor seems a little bit lonely, especially with the way his face always seems to light up whenever he runs into Yuuri in the elevator or the hall or the lobby.  
  
He’s imagining it, he tells himself. Someone like Victor probably spends his free time hanging out with supermodels on the weekends, drinking expensive champagne with beautiful people hanging off his arm. Besides, Yuuri doesn’t know Victor, never sees him anywhere but at the apartment, only spends the length of his elevator rides with him. There could be so much more he doesn’t know about Victor, and despite how much he wishes they could be, he and Victor aren’t friends, and definitely not anything more.  
  
“It’s not like that,” he insists, as Phichit re-caps his eyeliner and flashes himself a wink in the mirror. “Victor is way out of my league.”  
  
“You can tell yourself that as many times as you want, Katsuki. But I’ve ridden the elevator with Victor at least twelve times since he moved in and he hasn’t once asked me if he could come ‘watch me dance’.”  
  
“You’re not a dancer,” Yuuri mumbles. He ignores the truly judgemental look Phichit shoots his way. “Come on, we’re going to be late for the movie.”  
  
He locks the apartment door behind them, herding Phichit down the hallway. His friend is still tapping endlessly on his iPhone, no doubt updating all his social media sites about the matinee they’re on their way to see, and shuffles into the elevator behind Yuuri without even looking up from the device. Yuuri shakes his head, smiling, and settles back against the railing behind him, crossing his arms over his chest.  
  
“Hold the elevator!”  
  
The voice comes from down the hall, accompanied by the hurried sound of pounding feet on carpeted floor. The doors are halfway closed but Yuuri shoots out a hand, stopping them mid-slide. The doors judder, reversing their direction to slide back open and reveal--  
  
There’s a blur of brown fur, Phichit’s alarmed yell and Victor’s voice shouting “Makkachin, no!” and something huge and warm and slobbery tackles Yuuri back against the wall.  
  
It’s a poodle, a standard, judging by the size, huge fluffy paws planted against Yuuri’s chest, tail wagging frantically as it licks long stripes up Yuuri’s face.  
  
“Yuuri! I’m so sorry!” Victor follows the dog into the elevator, taking it by the collar and dragging it off Yuuri.  
  
“It’s fine,” Yuuri says, and he means it, smiling down at the dog. He bends to scratch under the dog’s chin, his grin widening when the dog leans into the touch, panting happily. He glances up at Victor, only to find the man smiling fondly down at him. “What did you say his name was?”  
  
“Makkachin. He usually behaves himself better with strangers; he must really like you.”  
  
“The feeling’s mutual,” Yuuri says happily, scrubbing the fingers of both hands through thick apricot curls. “I love dogs. How old is he?”  
  
“He’s ten, but you’d never know it. He’s still has just as much energy as he did as a puppy. Isn’t that right, Makka?” Victor pats Makkachin’s head fondly. “Actually, we’re headed to the park right now; would you--”  
  
Yuuri looks up at the pause, meeting Victor’s eyes. “Victor?”  
  
Victor smiles, his lip ticking up almost nervously. “Would you like to join us?”  
  
Would he ever. Yuuri misses his dog Vicchan, back home in Japan, more than he can say. He would love to get to play with Makkachin more, to see if he knows any tricks, to talk with Victor outside the confines of the apartment’s elevator for once.  
  
But he can’t, not today. “I can’t, I’m sorry,” he says, meaning it. He pushes himself to his feet. “Phichit and I are going to see a movie.” He gestures across the elevator at Phichit, who still has his phone raised but is watching the scene avidly over the top of it. Yuuri narrows his eyes in his best friend’s direction; Phichit better not be taking a video.  
  
Victor starts as if noticing the other occupant of the elevator for the first time. “Oh! Hello, Phichit.”  
  
Phichit smirks, waving the fingers of one hand. “Hi there, Victor.”  
  
Victor glances back and forth between them. He’s dressed more casually than usual today, a scarf looped around his neck and a sweater that looks like cashmere skimming over the lines of his narrow waist. “You two are…”  
  
“Running late for the movie,” Yuuri says apologetically. “He’s been trying to get me to see this with him for weeks.”  
  
“Oh, of course.” Victor’s face seems to fall, and he fiddles with Makkachin’s leash, tearing his eyes away from Yuuri as the elevator slows to a halt. The door slides slowly open, and Victor gives him one last smile, but this one doesn’t quite reach his eyes.  
  
“Enjoy the movie,” he says to them both. “C’mon Makka.”  
  
Yuuri gives the dog one last mournful pat. “Bye Makkachin. Bye Victor.” Victor smiles over his shoulder as he steps off the elevator with poodle in tow, Yuuri and Phichit trailing more slowly after. He takes a right out of the apartment doors, heading with sure strides of his long legs in the direction of the park.  
  
“Yuuri. Buddy.”  
  
Yuuri buries his face in his hands. “I know.”  
  
“He has a dog.”  
  
“I know,” Yuuri wails. He thought he had a crush on Victor before he knew Victor has a poodle, who he talks to in a baby voice like a dork.  
  
Now he’s completely and utterly doomed.  
  
He drops his hands, starting determinedly in the direction of the theatre. Phichit falls in beside him, his eyes back on his phone. But he’s not typing; this time he’s watching a video. Yuuri peers over his shoulder, and his own voice and Victor’s echoes back to him out of the speaker. Damn it; Phichit did record them.  
  
“I swear to god, Phichit, if you don’t delete that--”  
  
“Fine, fine,” Phichit says good naturedly, chuckling as he deletes it mid-stream. “But will you promise me one thing?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“I get to be best man at the wedding.”  
  
Yuuri groans, and shoves his friend, laughing, into a hedge.  
  
*****  
  
By the time Yuuri finally overcomes his anxiety and decides that he’s going to go for it-- and if it goes bad he can move out, leave the country, or at the very least never, ever ride the elevator again--Victor has already beat him to the punch. Yuuri waits on tenterhooks for the elevator every day for a week, watching the doors slide open in the lobby, peering anxiously down the hallway on their floor, but Victor never appears. Not in the mornings as Yuuri heads to his classes, or after, when Yuuri trudges home late with sore legs and sweat drying on his skin after Madame Baranovskaya puts him through his paces. Not even when Yuuri squeaks an excuse about needing to run to the store at odd hours over the weekend, just in the hopes of running into him.  
  
Phichit hasn’t seen him either, and he doesn’t laugh when Yuuri asks. Yuuri starts to think that maybe Victor moved out, except that painfully adorable “V. Nikiforov <3” still stares down at him from the list of buzzers between the doors to the outside and those leading to the lobby, taunting him day after day after day.  
  
Finally he comes to the obvious conclusion--Victor is avoiding him. Which is hardly a surprise, really; Yuuri must have embarrassed himself that last time, or offended him, or something, and Victor doesn’t want to spend his elevator rides with Yuuri anymore. He thought they had both enjoyed those meetings but--no.  
  
He might have kept on believing it, gone back to his regular life before Victor Nikiforov stumbled into it with 200 moving boxes and a devastating smile. Except that’s when he meets someone else on the elevator.  
  
He’s heading back home from the academy, this time after an audition for their season opening show. His hair is plastered unattractively to his head, his glasses smudged, and he’s rumpled from the long day and bus ride home, and he can’t wait to fall straight into bed after consuming frankly embarrassing amounts of Phichit’s Gaeng Daeng. But the door to the elevator slides open, and Makkachin comes bounding out, tackling Yuuri to the floor of the elevator.  
  
He goes down laughing, spilling his bag everywhere, but he doesn’t care, because he’s missed Makkachin so much, missed Victor even more, but when he finally manages to disentangle himself from the poodle, it’s not Victor on the end of the leash.  
  
“Ugh, get off, you stupid dog,” the boy snarls, dragging at the leash.  
  
“It’s okay,” Yuuri says. “Um. This is Victor’s dog.”  
  
The boy snorts, tossing his head to move aside a strand of blond hair that had fallen across his eye. “Yeah, no shit.”  
  
“Uh. Why do you have Victor’s dog?”  
  
“Victor’s been working late a lot,” the boy mumbles. “Mutt needs to be walked, and I get the job of doing it.”  
  
“Oh.” Yuuri shuffles under the intense green-eyed stare the boy levels his direction. The kid’s tiny, dressed in skinny jeans and a hoodie and adolescent rage. “Are you--his cousin?”  
  
“Yeah. How did you know that?” He squints suspiciously out from underneath his hood at Yuuri. “Wait. You’re that guy. The other Yuri.”  
  
Yuuri frowns, confused. “The other Yuuri?”  
  
“I’m Yuri.” The boy says aggressively, the possessiveness clear in the way he says the name. “But Victor won’t shut up about you.”  
  
He’s still confused, but his heart pounds, loud in his ears. “He won’t? I mean, he. He talks about me?”  
  
“All the damn time. Too much.” Yuri settles against the railing, crossing his feet at the ankles. Makkachin strains to the end of his leash, leaning up against Yuuri’s leg, turning his head into Yuuri’s hand.  
  
Yuuri smiles down at him, stroking his hand through the poof on the top of his head before darting a shy glance at Yuri. “Is Victor okay?”  
  
Yuri scrutinizes him across the elevator, bright eyes glittering. “Why do you care?”  
  
“What? Of course I care! We were…” he struggles for the word, how to explain what they were, what he’d hoped they’d be. “Friends, I guess.”  
  
“If you’re friends, why don’t you just go talk to him like a normal person?”  
  
Yuuri shrinks down subconsciously into the collar of his sweater. The idea of knocking on Victor’s door, of invading his privacy when he might not be wanted, when he hadn’t even seen the inside of Victor’s home with permission before, makes him want to crawl into a hole and never come out. “I don’t want to disturb him at his home,” he mumbles lamely.  
  
Yuri just stares at him until the elevator dings. He straightens, uncrossing his ankles and waits as the door opens, stepping out without a word. “Bye, Makka,” Yuuri calls forlornly out the open door after them.  
  
Suddenly, Yuri stops, spinning on one heel to meet Yuuri’s eyes, a scowl on his face. Yuuri only barely refrains from jumping back away from him.  
  
“Victor usually gets home around nine, these days. You should try the stairs.” And then he’s gone, disappearing out the apartment doors with all the purpose of his teenaged years, Makkachin trotting happily on his heels.  
  
Yuuri realizes he’s just ridden the elevator up and back down again, but he’s not exhausted anymore. He stares after Yuri long after he’s disappeared, until the doors to the elevator slide shut again. Numbly, he presses the button for the 25th floor, his heart still pounding loudly in his ears, a hopeful smile curling his lips.  
  
*****  
  
When it finally happens, it doesn’t happen in the elevator.  
  
It might have, given how Yuuri can’t stop thinking about Victor: the way his silver hair catches the light, the way his eyes are bright and warm all at once, the sound of his laugh. How good he looks in custom-tailored suits, or jeans and a sweater, or that one, cursed time, leggings and a cropped t-shirt when he was on his way home from the gym. The way he talks to Makkachin, the way he talks to Yuuri.  
  
But Victor is avoiding the elevator, and his angry adolescent cousin had told Yuuri to try the stairs, so for the second time since Victor moved into the building, Yuuri starts doing just that.  
  
He considers--briefly, after the fourth day he’s trudging past the door for the 21st floor, wheezing for breath with a cramp in his side--that Yuri might have been messing with him, as teenagers are wont to do. But there was something about the way he’d said it, with the air of someone reluctantly and with great trepidation throwing out a life raft to a drowning man, that makes Yuuri feel like he was genuine.  
  
So he continues taking the stairs, despite the burn in his calves and Phichit’s judgemental looks when he gets home sweaty and panting night after night, until finally, he gets lucky.  
  
This time, when he opens the door to the stairwell, there is the echoing shuffle of dress shoes on concrete, and he glances up over his head to see an elegant hand gripping the railing, a flash of silver that captures the dim yellow light from up high above them. Yuuri’s heart is instantly in his throat and he’s yelling “Victor!” before he can stop himself, breaking into a run up the stairs.  
  
Victor’s head appears over the railing, and he meets Yuuri’s eyes with his own wide, blue-eyed gaze. “Yuuri?” He slows, turning and moving slowly back down the stairs until he meets Yuuri on the nearest landing between them. “Is everything okay?”  
  
“No,” Yuuri says, steeling himself, his hands tightening to determined fists at his side. “You’ve been avoiding me.”  
  
Victor laughs, a hollow sound, and rakes a hand backwards through his hair. He shuffles a little where he’s standing, his expensive shoes scraping the floor. "Yes,” he admits ruefully, and Yuuri has to blink his surprise at the bald answer. “I’m sorry. I just made such a fool of myself last time we met; I didn’t want you to think you had to talk to me if you didn’t want to.”  
  
Wait, what?  
  
“What?” Yuuri says. “You made a fool of yourself?”  
  
Victor nods. “When I asked you on a date while you were already on a date with Phichit.”  
  
Yuuri can feel his mouth hanging open, but he doesn’t know where to begin. When had Victor asked him on a date? He’s almost 95% positive he would remember Victor asking him out. And--Phichit?  
  
“I’m not dating Phichit,” he says.  
  
Victor blinks. “You’re not?”  
  
“No. He’s my best friend, and my roommate, but we’re not together. And when did you ask me on a date?”  
  
“When I asked you to come walk Makkachin with me.” Victor's hair has fallen over his face, obscuring one eye, the other hidden beneath his heavy silver lashes as he stares at his own feet. He looks up to meet Yuuri’s eyes, a wry smile on his face. “I was never very subtle, you know. But you never seemed interested.”  
  
Yuuri has a terrible, overwhelming urge to laugh. He can feel the sound bubbling up inside him like lava, an incredulous, joyful sound filling his chest with warmth. Instead, he steps forward into Victor’s space, seizes him by his ridiculous navy blue brocade tie, and kisses him.  
  
Victor lets out a soft, surprised sound into Yuuri’s mouth, and then he’s moving in, his arms curling hungrily around Yuuri as he kisses back. His mouth is warm, his body solid and strong, and Yuuri thinks he could live in this man’s kisses, if he were given the chance.  
  
It’s over too soon, and Yuuri pulls back far enough to look up at Victor. “I’m interested,” he says, taking Victor’s hands in his. “I’m very interested.”  
  
“Thank god,” Victor says, and his voice has gone breathy and warm, and it hits Yuuri right in the gut so he has to kiss Victor again.  
  
“Do you want to do something? Right now?” Yuuri manages, short of breath and full of warmth when they finally draw apart again.  
  
"How about I make you that coffee?" Victor asks, and the open, honest hope on his face, the way his thumb skates over the back of Yuuri's hand, is too much. He winks. "I finally tracked down my coffee maker in all those boxes.”  
  
Yuuri bursts out laughing despite himself. "'Finally'? Victor! You've been living there for months!"  
  
Victor shrugs, a smile creeping over his face. "Does that mean you'll have coffee with me?"  
  
Yuuri nods, feeling himself flush. "On one condition."  
  
"Anything, Yuuri!" Victor's eyes are wide with an earnestness which is both ridiculous and ridiculously endearing. "Name your price!"  
  
Yuuri bites his lip, fighting back a smile. "I'll have coffee with you...if we can take the elevator."  
  
Victor blinks a few times before Yuuri's words sink in and he laughs softly, raising Yuuri's hand to his lips. "Of course." His lips brush softly over the back of Yuuri's hand, and Yuuri can feel his heart pounding, overjoyed in his ears, his skin flushed and warm.  
  
It's Yuuri that drags Victor back out of the stairwell, into the lobby, and presses the button for the elevator. The doors slide open slowly and they file in together, hands still clasped. He doesn't look at Victor, his eyes fixed straight ahead on his own flushed, happy reflection in the mirrored walls of the elevator, but he knows without having to look that Victor is smiling too.  
  
The elevator doors slide closed, and together, they start to move.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I'm on Twitter @maccachino!


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